The Ministry of Education is urging parents and guardians to monitor the cartoons or animated films their children watch.

Minister Mahendra Reddy said this as he reiterated the Ministry’s plans to develop their own cartoons next year which can be downloaded from their website.

“We (the education ministry) are also providing material for our Early Childhood Education Library and you would have noted that we have uploaded 29 educational cartoons on our homepage,” Mr Reddy said.

He was speaking during the launching of the National Library Week in Labasa on Friday.

“I urge all of you to download those educational cartoons, it is free and while it is developed in Kenya, it is very applicable to Fiji.

“We will be developing next year our own cartoons, so we want you to urge your children to watch this educational cartoons,” Mr Reddy said.

“We rather you let your young children watch these educational cartoons than watching programmes like Mr Bean as they are of no value to their education.

“Grandmothers, parents and babysitters are urged to play these educational cartoons because we do not want to waste that time from age two to five as it is a very important learning time for them.

“We want them to watch and learn from these cartoons so they are also better prepared for their early childhood education classes and primary schools as well.”

To download the cartoons visit the the ministry’s website: http://www.education.gov.fj/